


The Darkness That Lurks in Our Mind

by rissalf



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, but that should probably go without saying, really unpleasant shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:00:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19067773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rissalf/pseuds/rissalf
Summary: What is dead may never die,Theon thinks bitterly.Then I truly am a Greyjoy after all.Because though he’s long been dead, somehow he still draws breath.





	The Darkness That Lurks in Our Mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilentSinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentSinger/gifts).



> Surprise, bitch. I do hope this is to your liking.

A kind word from Ramsay Bolton cuts almost as deep as a sword.

Theon knows. He knows there’s a lie beneath the soft timbre of Ramsay’s voice, a viper coiled in wait beneath the rose bushes. He knows that to trust any word that comes from the sadistic bastard’s mouth is as foolish as a child believing the gods truly will come and save them all from harm. But the alternative…

After a while, it’s easier to just believe the lie. To grasp at the smallest hope for even a second is mercy. Respite from the howling winds and suffocating guilt that torment him ceaselessly.

In the evenings, when light fades and only the flicker of torches illuminates the cold, imposing castle walls, he comes. Ramsay with his sweet lies. With his curiously soft hands – lord’s hands, despite the nastiness they’re capable of inflicting. Every night he comes to torture his plaything, his Reek. That gentle, playful voice is always the same, regardless of intent, and Theon never knows whether to expect a blade through some soft, yielding part of his body or a flurry of groping, possessive hands and penetrating advances.

Perhaps that’s part of Ramsay’s game. Every waking moment exists to fill Theon with dread that pools like hot lead in his stomach. Every small mercy comes with a dose of poison to chase after it. Theon can’t recall how much time has passed since he last tasted pure freedom. The warmth of autumn has long since faded, replaced with the chill of winter winds – sharp as a nip from one of the Starks’ direwolf pups. Of course it’s been ages since they were pups, Theon thinks, remembering the jolt of terror he’d had upon returning to Winterfell and seeing the beasts roaming the castle grounds. He wonders idly what Ramsay would think of them; his lord does so love his hounds.

For a fleeting moment, Theon imagines their return, imagines the smug Lord Bolton face to face with two sets of gleaming white teeth – snarling, hungry, and so much larger than he is. In his dearest fantasies, Theon dreams of an escape. To be Theon Greyjoy once more instead of this Reek – this stinking, pathetic wretch who shrinks from touch and light like some mongrel that’s been kicked one too many times.

It’s folly, to indulge in a fantasy that will never happen, but oh Theon allows it for a moment. Eaten by the last of the Stark direwolves. The hunter finally receiving a taste of the terror he’s inflicted on countless others throughout the course of his exceedingly cruel life. Blood and mangled skin dangling from bones; screams–

It’s as much escape as he’ll ever experience, the reverie cut short by the dissonant creak of the kennel gate swinging open, followed by bold, steady footsteps that grow louder as they approach, each one plunging Theon ever deeper into the depths of doom. _Gods have mercy. Someone have mercy._

“There’s my good Reek,” Ramsay says from the shadows. He always sounds as though his face is painted with a perpetual grin, like he’s got a secret only he can share. And more often than not, he does.

“Y-yes, my lord,” Theon ventures. Will it be the bite of a whip tonight, or the dagger of false kindness? Either one will leave scars that will never heal.

“Tell me, Reek. How long has it been since you had a proper meal?” he asks.

Winterfell. Bran and Rickon still there – all the dead still living – the last time he’d eaten a meal that wasn’t tinged with rot and guilt and horror. If he says that aloud, he’ll weep; it’ll all come flooding back – who Theon Greyjoy was, what he’d done – and Theon Greyjoy was someone else. Someone dead. He had to be. “I- I can’t recall, my lord,” he replies.

“Well now, that simply will not do,” Ramsay says, stepping into the light – his face indeed bearing the twisted smile that haunts Theon’s dreams. He pulls a long iron key from beneath his cloak and unlocks the door. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Theon tries not to appear too eager, too hopeful, but it’s been two days at least since he last ate, and even the rats have begun to look like a tempting morsel.

“There’s just something I need from you first.”

Theon’s instinct is to shrink away, but to show fear will no doubt anger his lord. Navigating Ramsay’s moods is more fraught than the poisonous politics of King’s Landing could ever be, Theon is certain of this. Ramsay lives for inflicting fear – undoubtedly, he gets off on it – but it must be on his terms. To cower in the face of kindness would be seen as ingrateful, and while the end result will almost certainly find Theon in agony either way, at the least he stands to gain some small comfort if he behaves to the young lord’s satisfaction.

“Of course. I am yours to command.”

***

Ramsay’s chambers – lined with furs of every size, a fire cracking in the hearth – would easily have been the envy of many a northern man. The proud and ambitious Theon Greyjoy would have longed to warm himself in front of this blaze, would have sacrificed a man to sleep in Ramsay’s soft bed with a woman on his cock and a flagon of wine at his bedside. They would have made him ache for the comforts of his own home. But the sights and sensations of warmth and comfort are so unfamiliar to him now that every moment spent in Ramsay’s chambers feels perverse. This is nothing more than a noose wrapped around his neck, an arrow pointed straight at his heart. This is not his home; home is the kennel – a bed of straw, the squeak of rats and the bite of winter’s icy breath penetrating his bones. He is safer there, safer than he will ever be in the private retreat of Bolton’s Bastard. No one can help him here. Not that anyone would come to his aid elsewhere, of course – Ramsay’s men are loyal (or petrified) to a fault – but behind Ramsay’s thick oak door, he is truly and completely alone.

Any moment Ramsay will reveal his true intent and Theon will be wounded anew. He doesn’t even fear death now; death is a mercy. It’s as much a fantasy as the direwolves coming to claim Ramsay for a prize. _What is dead may never die,_ he thinks bitterly _. Then I truly am a Greyjoy after all._ Because though he’s long been dead, somehow he still draws breath.

He’s stripped naked, scrubbed until his skin feels raw. Ramsay does this himself, as though he’s caring for one of his snarling beasts after a particularly tiring hunt; Theon supposes in some odd way that’s precisely what he is to Ramsay, his dog. _But his lord does so love his hounds._ The notion fills him with a queer sort of comfort.

Bathed in the wan glow of cowering candlelight – even the flames seem to fear him somehow – Ramsay appears more terrifying than a host of grumpkins and snarks from Old Nan’s ridiculous tales. It’s a cruel irony that the world outside is far more harrowing than any of those stories meant to spook children into obedience. A simple look can cut deeper than a thousand swords, and silence can drive a man to madness.

It’s one of Ramsay’s favorite tactics. Staring into a man’s soul with those serpent’s eyes, saying nothing for so long that the quiet becomes a quagmire. The sharpest cuts lie in unspoken words, when the mind can only imagine the deepest, darkest terror; terror that ravages the heart and flays the soul; terror so acute that Theon considers begging the man to say _something. Anything_. When Ramsay finally speaks, the air filling Theon’s lungs feels as good as any whore he’s ever had.

“Tell me, Reek, do you still get a stirring down there where your pretty cock used to be?”

Theon averts his eyes. “N-no, my Lord,” he says. The only stirring now is that of sickness and despair at the memory of Ramsay waving the severed appendage before his eyes in demented triumph.

“Do you miss it?” Ramsay presses further. He prowls around his sullen hostage like a leering cat cornering a mouse, and makes a show of tracing his fingers along Theon’s skin, particularly pleased with the scars and barely healed wounds covering his chest. “You’ve fucked many a woman, from what I’ve heard. Do you miss plunging your sword into that tight, warm flesh? Feeling that slick heat contracting around you? Do you miss that sensation – you know the one – when you’re about to come and you feel as though you could fuck the gods themselves?”

“I live only for your pleasure now,” he murmurs.

Ramsay laughs long and hard. “Spoken like a true whore. Well done! But go on now. Be truthful. Lying is the only transgression I’ll punish you for tonight; you have my word.”

It is truth, though, however amusing Ramsay finds it to be. What else is there to live for? His only hope of surviving another day unscathed is pleasing his new master, and so this has become his only want; anything else is too dangerous to hope for. But that clearly isn’t the answer Ramsay wants to hear, and Theon is intelligent enough to know when a lie is the right kind of truth. “Sometimes.”

“Well of course you do,” Ramsay says softly, his hand moving downwards to feel the curve of Theon’s ass. “I do so hate that it had to come to that. We could have had fun, you and I. I imagine that cock of yours was quite something.”

He studies Theon’s face, bright blue eyes full of mischief and malice, no doubt searching for some spark of emotion, something to use against him. But there is no Theon Greyjoy to torment now. Only a shell. Only Reek. “Ah, well. There are other ways we can enjoy each other, you know.”

The difference between the two men must be laughable; slight Theon, hunched and frail, practically a waif in the shadow of Roose Bolton’s bastard. Ramsay is by no means a man a great stature, but cloaked in furs and standing more proudly than a hundred northmen, he commands every inch of space in every room he’s in. To Theon, he might as well be a giant.

“You know, some would say that without a cock, you’re no longer useful. That you might as well be dead.” He says this with all the nonchalance of a man discussing the weather. “But that’s simply not true, my dear Reek. Do you think that I would own something worthless? Would I debase myself in such a fashion?” He pulls off his boots and tosses them aside.

“No, my lord.”

“Precisely!” His cloak falls in a heavy heap, followed by his undershirt. “I assure you, so long as you have holes, you have worth. See, isn’t that a happy thought.”

His demeanor shifts, from wild-eyed psychopath to thoughtful – almost loving – caretaker, in the span of a breath, as he steps out of his trousers. “I’m going to show you. Would you like that, Reek?”

He says it as though Theon has any choice in the matter, as though declining the lord’s offer wouldn’t merit the loss of a finger or a strip of flesh peeled from his body and tossed into the hearth like the discarded rind of an orange. But sometimes – sometimes Theon imagines what it would be like to give himself over completely to Ramsay’s honeyed falsehoods. Would he sleep more soundly? Would it afford him a few more moments of peace?

Reek would do whatever he's bid. Would clamor to demonstrate his devotion to his lord. His master. Perhaps this is the last challenge. If he can prove his worth to Ramsay, please him well enough, then perhaps…

Theon knows better. But Theon is dead.

“Reek... has no desire but what his lord wills.”

“Good,” Ramsay says, removing the last of his smallclothes. “Then kneel.”

Reek drops to his knees; he cannot help but to shiver, in part from the cold stone against his damp skin, in part from the sight of Ramsay standing over him. _He’s not so large as Theon was,_ he thinks. _Theon would have laughed and called him a jealous twat._

“Get a good look at it,” Ramsay says, stroking himself until he’s fully erect. He may be smaller than Theon, but he’s still large enough, Reek notes bitterly. “Well, what do you think?”

He can’t think, can’t fathom what the correct answer might be. Ramsay is waiting, and the evening balances on the edge of a knife. He frantically tries to recall what Theon Greyjoy would have liked to hear from the whores he fucked, but he cannot dig up that corpse – not now, not ever.

Quite thankfully, Ramsay doesn’t wait for an answer. “I’d imagine it’s quite a mouthful. Would you like a taste?”

Knowing what Ramsay’s game is now, Reek opens his mouth in answer, ready to take in the length of him. Curious, in spite of himself, what he might taste like – he’s never been with a man, after all. Terrified that he’ll suffocate. As merciful as death might be, the idea of choking on the bastard’s favorite appendage does not bear the same promise of quick respite that a sword through the chest might.

Reek closes his eyes – better not to see it, he reasons – and puts all his energy into simply breathing as Ramsay’s cock enters his mouth. The bastard groans his appreciation as Reek drags his tongue around the tip, but before he’s able to take him further, Ramsay withdraws his dick and smacks him across the cheek with it. “That’s not the meal you’ll be having tonight, I’m afraid,” he laughs. “Come, to the bed.”

Reek scrambles off the floor – despite everything telling him to run the other way, to risk being hunted by the hounds again – and does as he’s bid.

Ramsay pats the bed, watching, waiting, no doubt prepared to force him if he must. “On all fours now.”

But force won’t be necessary. He’s Reek. He’s Reek. He’s Reek, _Reek, Reek._

“That’s a good boy.”

He thinks of nothing. Nothing but his name, repeated until its meaning is lost. _Reek._ Even as the bed creaks with Ramsay’s added weight; even as hands grab hold of his hips and a hard cock presses insistently against his cheeks; even as Ramsay spits onto his asshole. _Reek, Reek, Reek._

Ramsay leans over him and breathes in his ear. “This is going to hurt. Scream if you like.”

He pushes in all at once, no easing or finesse – but Reek doesn’t scream after all. He’s trembling terribly and whimpering like a baby torn from its mother’s breast, but he doesn’t scream. The acute intrusion sears like a brand, stretches him far, far too wide, and his eyes sting at the pain, but still he doesn’t scream. It isn’t defiance – the fight in him has long since faded into nothingness – it’s simply who he is now.  Reek will be good. He won’t complain. No pain can touch what he’s already endured.

“Gods, you’re tight, Reek. No whore’s cunt could give me what you can, you know.”

He begins to move, and Reek hangs his head, determined to be still and compliant and, above all else: _good._

Theon Greyjoy would never have allowed this. He would have fought until both men were bloody; he would have risked life and limb before he let himself be violated this way. Humiliated. Better to die like a man than to live in shame. But Theon did die, he reminds himself once more. And Reek – Reek can endure this. Because the alternative must be worse.

He can hear nothing but the grunts of the bastard, coarse breaths and curses uttered with all the abandon of a man who knows that he’s untouchable, interspersed with the perverse slapping of bare skin against skin. His fingers dig into flesh, bore into the bones of his hips, and Reek grips at the bedding – hanging on like he’s being tossed adrift in the sea, and the shore is nowhere to be found.

The worst of it all is that if he’d still had a cock, he might have enjoyed it. A desperate man can adapt to anything, and every odd thrust or so, Ramsay hits something deep, something that almost feels good. Reek dares the smallest shift backward and shudders. Better than good.

_You’ve fancied this before, a time or two. When you were him. Took a long look at Robb Stark, and–_

He’s yanked back by the hair as Ramsay comes, the bastard driving deep one last time before pulling out unceremoniously and smacking Reek on the ass. It’s over before Reek can begin to process the mixed emotions and question his sanity further. He won’t think of the lingering pain; he won’t think of the trickle of viscous fluids sliding down his thighs. It’s the only act of defiance he has left in him.

At Ramsay’s command, Reek gathers his lord’s clothing and redresses him quickly – his own body trembling from cold and shock in equal measure. Through it all, Ramsay is silent; Reek does not dare look at his face.

As Reek fastens the lord’s cloak, hands so close to his throat, Ramsay grabs him by the wrists. His first instinct is to wonder what he’s done wrong (though he’s been punished for invented slights on many an occasion), but Ramsay’s grip loosens almost at once.

“You are mine,” he says, fixing him with eyes that look almost black in this light. “The outside world will look down on you. They’ll think of you only as the man who murdered the Stark children. And those that do not will take one look at you now, cockless and weak, and say it would be better to bash your brains in against the battlements or to feed you to my dogs. But not me. I created you. Hollowed out the pompous little cunt that was Balon Greyjoy’s son and remade you anew. Better. Far more useful than you ever were before. Do you believe that, Reek?”

However sick the idea makes him, he cannot deny the veracity of it; there is no trace of Theon in this husk of a body now. “I do,” he says, barely more than a whisper.

Ramsay runs a hand through his Reek’s hair, the touch as unmistakably loving as any he’s felt in quite some time. “And you’ll never leave, no matter what. No matter who might try to take you from me. Tell me, Reek.”

All he can imagine in that moment is the scorn in the eyes of his sister, of his father. They’d thought him worthless and wretched before; he cannot fathom what they would make of him now. No, he supposes, he cannot go back. He cannot escape. The only home for him now is here, lapping at Ramsay Bolton’s feet, doing whatever he must to avoid his lord’s cruel blade and the equally callous world beyond these walls.

“Reek would never leave, my Lord,” he says. “He is yours.”

***

He follows close behind Ramsay as he leads the way back to the safety of the kennels, the quiescence disturbed only by the jaunty whistle dancing off the young lord’s lips. In spite of what he’s just endured, Reek could almost whistle himself. He’d done it. He survived another night with the ruthless Lord Bolton – and with no new scars to show for it. Every step fills him with relief, so much so that he nearly forgets the meal he’s been promised. But as the door clangs shut behind him, the gnawing in his gut returns, and he chances a favor from his master.

“M-my Lord,” Reek stammers. “F-forgive me, but will there be a meal now?”

Ramsay halts abruptly and snaps his fingers, as if he cannot believe his own foolishness.

“Right, yes. You did earn it, after all.” Ramsay retrieves a small bundle from one of his hunting satchels and slips it through the bars. The meat will be raw and cold and most likely riddled with maggots, but it will keep him from the agony of starvation, and for that Reek can be grateful. “I do hope this will be to your liking,” he says with his double-edged smile.

Reek unwraps the sack, delirious from hunger, desperate for even a sliver of rotten goat or moulded bread, but immediately recoils in horror. Not a shank of goat. Not a loaf of stale bread. Gods, he would have given anything if it were. No, there in front of him, covered in dirt and blood and stinking of death, lies the severed arm of what appears to be a child. One no older than ten by the looks of it.

“Eat up, my dear Reek. You’re going to need your strength tomorrow.”


End file.
